- Thomas Holloway
Thomas Holloway (
September 22 1800 -December 26 1883 ) was apatent medicine vendor andphilanthropist fromEngland .Early life
Holloway was born in Devonport,
Devon , in 1800. He was the elder son of Thomas and Mary Holloway (née Chellew), who at the time of their son's birth had abaker y business in Devonport. They later moved toPenzance ,Cornwall , where they ran the Turk's Head Inn. In the late 1820s, Holloway went to live inRoubaix ,France , for a few years. He returned to England in 1831 and worked inLondon as a secretary and interpreter for a firm of importers and exporters. In 1836, he set himself up as a foreign and commercial agent in London.uccess in Business
Holloway had business connections with an Italian, Felix Albinolo, who manufactured and sold a general purpose ointment. This gave Holloway the idea to set up a similar business himself in 1837. He began by using his mother's pots and pans to manufacture his ointment in the family kitchen. Seeing the potential in patent medicines, Holloway soon added pills to his range of products. Holloway's business was extremely successful. A key factor in his enormous success in business was
advertising , in which Holloway had great faith. Holloway's first newspaper announcements appeared in 1837, and by 1842 his yearly expenses for publicity had reached over £5,000 (GBP ). By the time of his death, he was spending over £50,000 a year on advertising his products. The sales of his products made Holloway a multi-millionaire, and one of the richest men in Britain at the time. Holloway's products were said to be able to cure a whole host of ailments, though scientific evaluation of them after his death showed that none of them contained any ingredients which would be considered to be of significant medicinal value.Tittenhurst Park
Holloway had become extremely wealthy by the late 1860s and bought a Georgian House at Sunninghill, near
Ascot ,Berkshire calledTittenhurst Park . Holloway lived there with his wife, Jane, Jane's sister Sarah Anne Driver with her husband George Martin(sic - ironic but not connected withGeorge Martin associated with later resident Beatles fame), and Holloway's sister Matilda, an invalid who died soon after.Cite book | author=Williams, Richard| authorlink= | coauthors= | title="Royal Holloway College, A Pictorial History" (first published October 1983) | date=1983 | publisher=Royal Holloway, University of London | location=Surrey | isbn=0-900145-83-8 | pages=page 6 - includes a picture of the house ca.1930] Jane died in 1875, aged 61; Holloway died there on 26 December 1875, aged 83. They are buried in a family grave at Sunninghill churchyard.A century later, from 1869-71, the building became the home of Beatle
John Lennon with his then new wifeYoko Ono , having been married on 20 March 1969 inGibraltar Cite book | author=Harry, Bill| authorlink= | coauthors= | title=The Beatles Encyclopaedia (2000 paperback edition; first published 1992) | date=2000 | publisher=Virgin Publishing, London W6 9HA | location=London | isbn=0 7535 0481 2 | pages=638] . Another Beatle,Ringo Starr , lived there after Lennon till the late 1980s. In 1988, the property was sold to SheikhZayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan , President of theUnited Arab Emirates ] and ruler ofAbu Dhabi . Since then major renovation of the manor has been carried out, and the interior no longer resembles the house lived in by Lennon and Starr.Philanthropy
Holloway is best remembered for the two large institutions which he built in England:
Holloway Sanatorium inVirginia Water ,Surrey , and Royal Holloway College, a college of theUniversity of London inEnglefield Green ,Surrey . Both were designed by the architectWilliam Henry Crossland , and were inspired by the Cloth Hall inYpres ,Belgium , and theChâteau de Chambord in theLoire Valley ,France . They were founded by Holloway as " 'Gifts to the Nation' ". Holloway claimed that it was his wife, Jane, who inspired him to found the college, which was a college for the eduction of women-only until 1945. Holloway also paid over £80,000 to acquire 77Victorian era paintings which he donated to the College at the time of its founding. Most of these pieces of art still belong to the college, and remain on display today in the college's Picture Gallery.A
philanthropic and somewhat eccentric donor (he had an unconcealed prejudice against doctors,lawyers andparsons ), Holloway died ofcongestion of thelungs at Sunninghill in 1883, eighteen months before the opening of the Sanatorium.Bibliography
*Harrison-Barbet, Anthony. "Thomas Holloway: Victorian Philanthropist". ISBN 0-900145-89-7
References
External links
* [http://www.rhul.ac.uk/College-Profile/briefhistory.html History of Royal Holloway and Bedford New College]
* [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~villages/Surrey/People/holloway.htm RootsWeb.com's page on Thomas Holloway]
* [http://www.stamp.demon.co.uk/Philately/ProtectiveOverprintsAndUnderprints/UserPages/Holloway244/Holloway244.htm Victorian Postage Stamp Overprint used by Thomas Holloway]
* [http://www.auspostalhistory.com/index.php?cID=19&pID=80 Australian Postal History and Thomas Holloway]
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